The Mainstream Media is Terrified of Acknowledging Trump's Mental Degeneration

The media has been finding new and exciting ways to overlook Trump's aberrant and abhorrent behavior since he first came down that escalator so many decades ago, way back in the distant year of 2015. They ignored his corrupt foundation. They ignored his racism. They ignored his mob ties. They ignored everything except how good he was for ratings until he stumbled into an illegitimate presidency.

Now they're ignoring his mental deterioration.

Matthew Yglesias blasts the "liberal" media for setting the bar so low that all Trump has to do is speak semi-coherent English and not piss himself in public to be declared mentally fit to be President of the United States:

Emily Stephenson, a Politico editor, tweeted that the session was “a rebuke of reports that [Trump] is less than fully capable” while promoting a Louis Nelson story that congratulated the president for his ability to recall the names of the participants in the meeting he organized.

I asked what about the meeting demonstrated that Trump is capable, and she replied that she meant, quite literally, that the meeting seemed to show that Trump knows the names of several members of Congress.

Yglesias points out that, "“not senile” is not an appropriate bar to set for the president of the United States", but that's the bar the mainstream media would very much like to set in the wake of Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury, which paints a very clear picture of a man in serious cognitive distress. Everyone around Trump is aware of how badly he's faring under the pressure. The fact that his staff has reduced his work day to less than 8 hours and at least half of that is spent in "Executive Time" watching cable news confirms it.

Yet the mainstream press is avoiding it like the plague and it's not hard to intuit why: Acknowledging that Trump is literally a dotard means acknowledging that the Republican Party, who would unavoidably know it's true, is betraying the country by allowing this dangerous farce to continue. They have the power to remove Trump at any time but he's more useful to them where he is and so they're leaving a man that should be in a nursing home in charge of our nuclear arsenal.

There is literally no chance the media will adopt this narrative no matter how obvious and truthful it is. Partly because they're afraid to seem partisan but mostly because there's literally no way to blame both parties. Without the shield of "bothsiderism", the press is paralyzed into inaction despite the grave threat the GOP presents to both the country and life on this planet.

Thus, we get the spectacle of "journalists" citing the ability of Trump to remember names (or read them off of the placards in front of every person attending, something Stephenson neglected to mention and was soundly criticized on Twitter for) as evidence he's not senile.

What makes the entire scene worse is that even though Trump didn't swallow his own tongue at his big DACA negotiation meeting, he clearly didn't understand anything being discussed, including what he himself was saying. He needed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Adult Day Care) to keep him from accidentally reversing his position on a topic central to his administration:

At the end of the day, McCarthy’s position prevailed and the discussion broke up with no meaningful progress having occurred beyond Trump’sline about a “clean” DACA deal was getting mysteriously omitted from the White House transcript, as Washington Post reported yesterday. Republicans and Democrats remained in their respective corners and for Republicans this is apparently good enough. Trump may not have any grasp of what his own party — indeed, his own administration — is doing, but he defers to congressional Republicans on policy matters and is probably not suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Congratulations, America!

But the mainstream press wants you to know that Donald Trump is not senile because...reasons. Unbelievable.